Dealing With Email for Your Own Sanity! Really A New Life Skill

A clean inbox sounds freaking awesome right? Or even an inbox that doesn’t stress you out when you open it. But email just keeps coming at you and keeps multiplying. A recent study by the McKinsey Global Institute found that the average knowledge worker spends 28 percent of his or her workweek either writing, reading, or responding to e-mail. (McKinsey Global Institute, 2012). Another study states that the average professional wastes over 2.6 hours in their email inbox everyday. Added up for a year, thats about 27 days (683.8 hours if you only spend time on email on weekdays but I know most people are still in their inbox on Saturdays and Sundays, thats over 28 days a year!) I don’t know about you but I can thing of a million other important things I could do with 28 days a year!

Dealing with email has become such a problem for people and clients of mine, I use to get asked the question “how do you manage your email so well?” so often, I actually created a QUICK course to teach people how to deal with their email. To assist others on their mission to reduce email I teach them how “Escape Email Overwhelm in Under 1 Hour.” It was obviously a problem for many people because as of today almost 2600 people from over 100 countries have enrolled in the course.

I’ve notice since I’ve created the course this has been such a hot topic. So much advice, tips, tricks, and softwares have now been thrown out there, the answer to how to deal with email has become so complicated.

Aaron Dignan writes,

“According to productivity thought leaders, to master your e-mail, you need to do most (if not all) of the following:

Label your e-mails for faster retrieval

Set up rules so that your e-mail can sort itself

Archive all of your e-mails so that you can focus

Color code your e-mail, for visual cues to priority

Use a reminder tool so that important e-mail chains resurface

Convert e-mail into tasks, so that nothing slips through the cracks

Track e-mail, so you can see when/where it gets read

Create e-mail templates so that you can rapidly send common messages

Unsubscribe from excess newsletters frequently

Limit your e-mails to five sentences or less

Use a social plug-in so that you can see the faces and facts behind your e-mails

Email unfortunately, has become an extension of ourselves. A permanent place to dump to-dos and for others to put THEIR DEMANDS on us. Sure there are many hacks, tricks, tips and softwares you can use but it really doesn’t have to be that complicated. Here are the3 simple main ideas that I suggest people think about when trying to conquer the overwhelm of email. Everything else, all the tactics and tricks I always suggest, really come under these 3 areas in my mind.

1. Your Email Should Not Substitute As A Project Management Tool Or To Do List
Almost every email is connected to an action or a complex goal/bigger picture project in life. Maybe an ultimate life goal, a project for work, places you need to go, to do’s etc etc. Learning and analyzing what is actually coming into your inbox and understanding their bigger purposes, will allow you to see where the emails truly belong. Learning to process your email and put it where it REALLY needs to go is the key here.

2. Learning The Difference Between Important, Urgent, and Non Of The Above

Instant communication has made most people forget the simple fact you don’t need to look at it now. You don’t have to respond to the text, answer the phone, or answer the email right away. Email is just another thing in your life that screams look at me, give me attention! If you can learn to resist the urge and process email when it is convenient, most productive and effective for YOU, you will indeed have learned an important lesson. This really is a big life lesson of how you spend your time. Do you bow to things that scream for attention or focus on what’s really important to you. Honestly enjoying a nice meal with loved ones and connecting is really more important to me then answering an email. As long as I’ve been doing this, no one has ever died and no catastrophe has occurred since I only check my email twice a day.

I hope some of this has helped make your quest to deal with email a little bit easier. If you still need a more help and have an hour (so you can save 28 days of your life this year!) I suggest you checkout my course.Escape Email Overwhelm < 1 Hour.If it doesn’t help you, you get your money back. Simple.

1 Comment

I’m extremely impressed with your writing skills and also with the
format for your blog. Is that this a paid topic or did you modify
it your self? Anyway keep up the excellent high quality writing,
it is uncommon to see a great blog like this one today..

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A NOTE FROM ROSALEE

Everything I do, the programs/things I create, help others get closer to reaching their highest potential and in helping people & businesses in becoming the biggest and best version of themselves, to #makelifeyourmasterpiece. Sprinkled with magical moments along the way.